Bati

The hard, round wheat bread of the Rajasthani desert — coarse wheat flour kneaded with ghee and minimal water into a firm, dry dough, shaped into balls and baked in hot desert sand traditionally, or in a wood fire or oven today, until the exterior is a hard, golden-brown crust and the interior remains dense and doughy. The bati is the bread that gave the dal-baati combination its name; made without water apart from minimal binding, it represents the desert preservation of food — a bati stays edible for days without refrigeration. Broken open and dunked in ghee or dal, it absorbs liquid completely and becomes the most satisfying bread of Rajasthani cooking.